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The state is warning three charter-school sponsors against opening six new schools because they
are likely to fail.

Rather than have a repeat of last year, when more than a dozen charters opened, flailed and then
abruptly closed, the Ohio Department of Education intervened and told the sponsors: If you allow
the six schools to open, you’re finished as sponsors in Ohio.

In the past, the department always has left decisions about which schools may open to the
sponsors.

But when Education Department officials saw the preliminary contracts that Educational Resource
Consultants Inc., based in Cincinnati; Kids Count of Dayton Inc.; and the Warren County Educational
Service Center drew up with the new schools, they say they realized public money was in danger.
Three of the six schools in question are to open in Columbus, one from each of the sponsors.

Letters sent to the sponsors on Thursday spell out the state’s issues with each school. One
charter-school developer ran a school that last year was forced to close; he owes the state money.
The state called another a “recycled school” because the new school is opening with a new name, but
in the same location and with the same leaders as a school that was forced to close because of poor
academic performance.

Too many schools opened last year that shouldn’t have, said state Superintendent Richard Ross. “
These schools waste taxpayer money,” he said. “I’m a big proponent of choice, but they have to be
quality choices.”

Two sponsors said yesterday that the state is mistaken; they carefully vetted the new schools
and believe they would be successful. Officials with the third sponsor, ERCO, did not respond to an
interview request.

The letter to the Warren ESC likens its plans for three new dropout-recovery schools to plans
for the Olympus high schools that lasted only a few months in Columbus and Dayton last year. The
Olympus operator opened eight schools, each predicting large enrollments. But few students came,
and they closed at a loss of $1.17 million.

The state questions the Warren ESC’s prediction that the new schools in Cincinnati, Dayton and
Columbus would each draw 175 students as demand dwindles for dropout-recovery schools. New charters
receive money based on their enrollment predictions and must pay some back if those predictions are
too high.

ESC Superintendent Tom Isaacs said what the state says is “blatantly false.” The three new
schools are run by a group with five successful schools elsewhere in the state, Isaacs said. They
average about 200 students per school. The ESC sponsors four schools total; none have closed.

“We are going to do whatever it takes to fight this. I find (the state’s) letter to be insulting
and condescending and false,” he said.

Kids Count was preparing to open Global Choice Academy here. But the man who would run the
school, Abdalla Kassim, ran a Columbus school deemed unsanitary and unsafe and ordered to close in
the fall. He owes the state $65,000 because he overstated how many students he’d have. A simple
Google search would’ve turned up Kassim’s unsuccessful charter-school attempt, says the letter to
Kids Count.

“We knew,” said Ethel Washington-Harris, director of Kids Count. “We took them through our
vetting process, our evaluation process, and felt comfortable enough to offer them a preliminary
agreement.”

She said she’s not sure whether Kids Count will open the school.

Ross said the state is addressing charter-school quality by getting tough with sponsors. In
February, the department began requiring sponsors to submit much more information about the new
schools they planned to approve after so many charter failures last year. “To reject those (new
schools) based on past performance may be a change, but it’s not an erroneous change,” Ross said. “
I want to send the message that I want good authorizers out there.”